


the wanderer

by dicaeopolis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Nymphs & Dryads, Other, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 07:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15791982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicaeopolis/pseuds/dicaeopolis
Summary: Sometimes you have to run away just to see who'll follow.





	the wanderer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decidueye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/gifts).



> named after the Sharon Creech book, for no reason whatsoever. happy 25th to someone who's loved as much as Akaashi is and more.

_Ak_ aashi slips away in the early hours of the dawn, with a rucksack and a pair of tough leather boots and a walking stick that Konoha once carved for them that has animal faces peering from the thick wooden foliage along the sides. Low-hanging clouds drift across the hard-packed dirt in front of them, and then dissolve in the wavery but determined burn of morning sun. They stand aside and raise a hand in greeting to a few passing carts, but soon enough, those fade away too. And ahead, the mountains grow from a hazy blue ridge to high, snowcapped crags.

They haven’t told anyone they’re heading north. It didn’t seem important, honestly. They can take care of themself, and enough people know it that none will follow. And they don’t care to explain to anyone why they’re going when it all sounds like fairies and nonsense. There's some undefinable, restless dissatisfaction, heavy in the pit of their stomach. And an itch in their soles. Nothing that would stave off Bokuto’s or Kuroo’s questions for long, that’s for sure.

The jubies are the first sign, once the road has started to twist and gnarl into more of a path up into the foothills. It’s Akaashi’s mistake. They’d been lost in thought, letting the road roll by under their boots instead of paying attention. When they trip, they curse violently on the way down, and catch themself painfully on the palms of their hands.

“Shit,” they mutter again, and “Fuck,” for good measure as they glare around. To all appearances, they’d tripped over the prominent root just behind them. And it’s not like they’d recognize a jubie if they saw one - nobody’s ever managed to find out what they look like. But there’s no mistaking that muffled giggling.

“That wasn’t funny,” Akaashi snaps to the peaceful forest in general.

Another chorus of tittering.

Akaashi rolls their eyes. They pick themself up, and rap the root with the scuffed tip of their walking stick. As they head further, they keep their eyes fixed on the path, guarding against jubies ahead.

“Nasty little buggers,” they mumble to themself. Jubies are painfully shy, as averse to being watched as a vampire is to a holy cross. They hide behind roots, and stay there safely when a traveler’s eye is careful. But when one’s gaze strays, they pop up lightning-quick, catch hold of the toe of one’s boot, and  _ yank. _

It isn’t until the trail smooths again and the stinging in their palms fades that Akaashi realizes this is a good sign.

Sure enough, it’s not long before there’s another figure on the path. He’s bent over a small cluster of blackberry bushes on the side of the way, and he’s facing up the road. Akaashi pauses a few feet away, and observes him for a moment.

The boy barely reaches Akaashi’s hip, but his face isn’t much younger than Akaashi’s own. His hair is a wild mess of bright orange, his feet bare, his clothes little more than a rough-cut jerkin. In the back of the cloth, there’s a pair of slits cut to accommodate a pair of fanned-out wings, delicate and translucent as a dragonfly’s. And he’s fully absorbed, not in his task at the blackberry bushes, but in grumbling aloud to himself as he halfheartedly prods at the brambles.

“Go  _ pollinate _ \- bet  _ Kei _ isn’t pollinating right now - even  _ Tadashi _ gets to go play with the baby robins -  _ knew _ Daichi-san was mad at me-”

“I’m sure there’s worse tasks,” says Akaashi, and the boy about jumps out of his jerkin as he whirls around.

“Aah -  _ crap - ow-” _ And then there’s a cry of genuine pain. Akaashi hurries forward, alarmed, and takes the boy under his arms, lifting him from the bramble patch where he’s fallen. The boy’s eyes are huge and starting to water.

“Ah, I’m sorry - ah - don’t cry, please.” Akaashi sets the boy down on his feet like they’re placing down a chair. His arms have a few bramble-scratches pricking red with blood, but it can’t be anything he’s not used to. “Um, what’s, um-”

“My wing,” says the boy, subdued and watery. He fans out to reveal a tear in the glimmering, translucent rainbow of his left wing, about a foot long. “‘S ripped.”

“Ah,” says Akaashi, relieved that he’s not crying properly. They shrug off their pack. “Well, that’s easily mended, then.”

The tiny wooden box of salve was a gift from Yukie. Akaashi doesn’t know what’s in it. (They’d carefully avoided asking her, actually. With Yukie, one often doesn’t want to know.) But when the glob of it on their finger first touches the tear, the boy exhales a sigh of relief. Akaashi spreads the ointment down the line of the tear, watching it close up behind their fingertip.

“It might scar,” they caution him.

_ “Sick,” _ the boy whispers, reverent.

Once they’re done, the boy hops to his feet and shakes out his wings, fanning them a few times in experiment. He hums in satisfaction and then turns his blinding smile on Akaashi. “That feels way better! Thanks, ma’am.”

Akaashi nods back as they repack their kit. “It’s the least I could do, considering I was the one who startled you.”

“Do you want to come back with me for dinner?” the boy continues. “Our food’s good! You’re a little big for the house, but it’s a nice day to eat outside anyway.”

Akaashi’s had fae food before, and some ancient hunger stirs in them at the mention - the offer isn’t a common one. And they have nothing to fear from the young fairy. They’ve just done him a favor, and after all, it’s not as if they’re human.

“Thank you,” says Akaashi, and offers a rare smile. The boy beams back, sunny. “But I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I think,” says Akaashi, “home.”

* * *

The path is climbing steep and overgrown into the peaks by the time it joins the river. It’s a bit of a relief, honestly. That restless tug in Akaashi’s chest had led them along a difficult route, and they’d begun to worry they were going astray.

When they pick their way down to the river from the bank where the trail peters out, the current is spread into a broad, flat swimming hole, water tumbling down into it from one end and draining on the other. Akaashi spares a moment to shed their boots and roll up their trousers. They wade in from the side, and sigh in pleasure at the coarse sand around their toes.

“Well, now, what do we have  _ here?” _ says a nasal voice from upstream.

Akaashi falls gracefully headlong into the water.

When they resurface, soaked and spluttering, they’re being laughed at. Above their swimming hole, there’s another one, water lapping up against a ledge that drops off steeply just beyond. Three girls have folded their arms over the edge and are peering at Akaashi, one with coppery hair and a lazy expression, two with the same sandy hair and mischievous eyes.

One of the sandy-haired girls stands up to get a better look, revealing a bare, flat chest streaming with water. “Someone’s looking a little damp.” She’s the one who had spoken, judging by her voice, which is nasal and now gleeful.

“Very funny,” Akaashi says, pulling themself up from the stream. “I’m not  _ human, _ you know, you don’t need to do things like that.”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” coos the redhead. “C’mon, come swim with us. We have more sun up here.”

The only time Akaashi has been swimming recently, Kuroo had dragged them out with an eyebrow-wiggling promise of Bokuto in scanty attire, and then pounced on them to dunk them the moment they shed their cover-up. Akaashi wrinkles their nose. “I’m not much for swimming, thanks.”

"You’ve already  _ been _ swimming,” points out the third girl, hitching herself up further to watch Akaashi. “Besides, we didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I don’t take kindly to being laughed at, either.”

“Please?” says the first girl. Her voice is a little softer now. “We don’t get much company, you know.”

The only time Akaashi has been swimming recently, they’d tackled Kuroo in vengeance, and ended up staying in the water with him until the moon was high in the sky. When they’d gotten home, late that night, their cheeks had been pink from the sun and sore from smiling. And Kuroo had been smiling the whole time too, even when he thought Akaashi wasn’t looking.  _ Especially _ when he thought Akaashi wasn’t looking.

They sigh.

The girls’ pool  _ is _ warmer than the one that Akaashi had been in. They leave their wet clothes on a rock in the sun to dry, and dip themself in slowly. It’s an odd sort of a let-down that nobody pulls them in.

Fortunately, embarrassment aplenty is in store, when Akaashi realizes with a start that the three girls don’t appear to  _ exist _ underwater. When they stand up, sure enough, there’s flesh and blood - but below the surface, the water appears to be empty. When the first girl wades over to the tumbling water at the head of the pool to splash in it, Akaashi attempts to subtly study the exact boundary line, somewhere around her hip.

She catches them looking and winks before disappearing with a splash. When she materializes out of the water again, she’s right next to them, without so much as a ripple in the water to betray her. And she’s grinning a foxlike grin.  _ Nymphs. _

Akaashi huffs and rolls their eyes at her silent teasing, and when the copper-haired girl invites them to stay the night, it’s only with visible reluctance that they decline.

* * *

There’s sunlight through the trees ahead.

There’s always the light cleared by the river, of course, as Akaashi picks their careful way up its rocky course. But it’s a different kind of sunlight, Akaashi thinks, squinting through the trees. Warmer than the sky, and greener.

They’ve passed through cleared valleys before, but none so high up. Unbidden, their step begins to quicken, not slowing even when they stumble hard over a stray jubie. There’s something in their chest - exhilaration, yearning. Somewhere close ahead, they can hear the steady roar of a waterfall.

They don’t notice the voices til they round the corner and come face-to-face with a panther.

He’s pure black, and bigger than any normal cat could grow - his shoulder is as tall as Akaashi’s. He’s watching them with honey-gold eyes, pupils narrowed to slits. His ears are pricked and alert, his nostrils are flared, and his jaws are parted to catch scent, revealing a mouthful of sharp, curving teeth. He’s also dripping wet. Huge pawprints on the rock lead to the churning white pool at the base of the waterfall, which tumbles down haphazardly from about thirty feet overhead.

“They smell like humans,” is the first thing the panther says. His voice is low, suspicious. Although he’s clearly not addressing them, his eyes are fixed on Akaashi.

“I’d hope not,” says Akaashi. “I came from this forest as much as you did.”

“Give ‘em a sniff,” suggests a third voice. And at this point, Akaashi isn’t surprised to see a man peering out, quite literally, from the spray of the waterfall. As the stream of water falls onto his head, it’s absorbed into his mop of black-and-white hair, soaking into his form rather than rolling off.

A rumble of agreement sounds in the panther’s chest. He pads forward with silent steps and lowers his nose to Akaashi’s shoulder, inhaling deeply. Akaashi holds perfectly still, even when his whiskers tickle their neck. For all their bravado, this creature could kill him quite easily.

When the panther lifts his head, his eyes are gentler, and he whuffs a warm breath over Akaashi’s face. “Now, that changes things.”

“What does?” Suddenly, the waterfall is at the cat’s side, forming up out of the pool at his feet. He steps closer to Akaashi and peers at them with open curiosity in his wide yellow eyes. They bite back a grin. “What are you?”

“The empty tree from the valley,” says the panther. “They’ll be wanting to see the mother tree, hmm?”

_ “Oh.” _ The waterfall bounces onto the balls of his feet, eyes alight. “Wow. Oh, wow. Can I come? I want to see her! She hasn’t been down here in ages, and the  _ empty tree, _ wow-”

“No, you stay here.” The panther bumps his muzzle against the waterfall’s shoulder. “You know you get tired and cranky if you move too far from your water. And the mother tree visited two days ago.”

“Fiiiiine,” says the waterfall, and falls apart into water that runs back down into the pool.

“That one,” the panther says to himself, amused and affectionate, “is always trying to push his limits.”

There’s a sulky splash in response, and Akaashi smiles to themself as they follow the cat’s padding steps into the woods.

It doesn’t take long. They follow a narrow deer-path along the river, towards the sunlight that’s getting brighter by the step. The panther doesn’t try to make conversation, thankfully - Akaashi isn’t sure if they could say a word. They hurry, and then break into a run, and the panther lopes behind them as they break out into a broad, sprawling valley, covered in scrub brush and wild grasses and tangles of footpaths.

There’s rustling in the branches of the trees around them, and a few of the other dryads -  _ siblings _ \- step out of their trees to watch in awe. But Akaashi only has eyes for the sycamore at the head of the valley. They race towards the tree, barely noticing it when the panther stops following them and stands to watch. When they stop short at her roots, they open their mouth, and then close it again.

Fortunately, she speaks first, in an ancient voice that rolls up from deep within the trunk.

“Keiji,” says the mother tree.

And suddenly, Akaashi doesn’t need to say a word. They’ve spent the weeks of their journey thinking and thinking again, how to explain, if they should apologize, endless scenarios and analyses turning in their head. But now that they’ve come home to their mother, to the valley where they grew up strong on snowmelt-water and sharp mountain sunlight, to where their tree still waits for them - Akaashi just leans against her trunk, closes their eyes.

“You’re tired,” says Akaashi’s mother, gentle as the springtime.

They hadn’t noticed it until she said so, but suddenly it’s undeniable - they’re exhausted. Their feet are aching, bones worn with the decades of absence. Their roots are murmuring in the back of their mind, calling them to the soil. They turn instinctively towards their tree, and then glance back at their mother.

Her foliage rustles in the warm summer breeze, and it sounds like a smile. “Stay with us for a while, child.”

They do.

* * *

But they can’t help but wander.

The three nymphs have followed Akaashi upstream, and when Akaashi asks  _ why, _ they just giggle in chorus and drag them swimming again. On the summer solstice, the fae come to dance in the valley of the mother tree, and a tiny ball of redhead finds Akaashi afterwards and proudly shows off the barely-perceptible line of the scar on his wing. (For an abrupt moment, Akaashi is abjectly terrified of the retribution they’ll face for allowing the fae child to mar himself, but when they meet the king of the seelie court, he’s a kind-faced man with a strong jawline and a stronger handshake who has nothing but thanks for Akaashi’s treatment.) And of course, the waterfall is nearby, and between the panther’s coaxing and the waterfall’s outright pleading, Akaashi finds themself there more afternoons than not, hiding their laughter as the two spirits splash around before they join in themself.

(That’s, of course, after the first month, when they didn’t step out of their tree’s bark once.)

The attention leaves something heavy in their stomach.

It’s not pleasant to admit. It’s just - they’d thought, coming here, that none would follow. And somehow-

So, gradually, they begin to spend less time in their tree and more time exploring up higher in the peaks, where the snow never melts, even in high July. They return to the valley late, if at all. And one night, their mother has stepped out of her tree when they return.

“Ah - mother.” Akaashi pauses in surprise. It’s rare to see the mother tree out of her trunk. She’s waiting by Akaashi’s tree, forehead as lined as her bark.

“Keiji,” she says. Her voice is deep, even in this form.

“Yes,” they say, and then, “I’m sorry if I’ve worried you.”

“You’re always welcome here,” their mother continues, as if uninterrupted. “You are my child, no less than any other.”

“Thank you,” says Akaashi, which doesn’t seem quite right, but they aren’t sure what else would. The weight in the bottom of their stomach is feeling heavier.

“But you,” says the mother tree, “are running away.”

She rises to her feet and kisses Akaashi’s forehead, tender. And then she makes her way back to her sycamore.

One sunset, Akaashi is heading down a ridgeline on a pair of makeshift snowshoes they’ve cobbled together, crunching a single set of tracks through the rosy-gold snow. The sun is casting shadows high up the mountainsides, and when Akaashi glances over at it, it’s sinking down towards the horizon like a cold nickel. The wind’s battering against Akaashi’s eyes, and even through the scarf they brought from the city, they can taste new snow looming on the wind.

The rawhide and wood of their shoes sink down slightly as they pause.

At first glance, Akaashi thinks the figure is human, so coated in snow that they look like a lumbering white bear. They’re not on any trail, though, and they’re moving too quickly for the depth of the snow. Akaashi is too far away for them to hear and too high to see, but the figure’s path veers towards them anyway, and as Akaashi watches, they relax. They’re white not with snow, but with a thick, tangled coat of coarse, silvery-white hair.

Akaashi raises a hand in greeting, and the figure stops about five feet away. They’re bigger than Akaashi had realized - about three heads taller, built thick and brawny. Their face is mostly hidden by the shags of white fur, but Akaashi can make out two bright green eyes, crinkled with the weather but still alert.

“Russian?” Akaashi asks, muffled through their scarf.

The wind whips their words away, but the creature grins anyway, baring a mouthful of blunt yellow teeth. “Yeah. Wintering here.”

“Need some space?”

“Might do you good to clear out.” They stamp their foot in the snow a few times, testing, and then squint across at the sunset. “I’ll wait til the sun’s gone.”

Akaashi nods and starts moving again, heading for the shelter of the trees on the other side of the ridge. Behind them, they can hear the Russian stomping through the wind, thumping and pushing at slabs of snow. Their fierce, delighted roar rises and echoes amongst the peaks, lingering and then building louder. When Akaashi looks back, the sun’s dropped below the horizon, and snow is tumbling and rolling down the mountainside like a wave that builds and builds and builds.

Afterwards, they’re halfway back down the mountain and the dawn is starting to break when the panther finds them.

“Oh, what are you-?” is all the question they manage to get out before they’ve been scooped up in a huge paw and slung onto a pair of broad, furry shoulders.

“Hold tight,” says the panther. Akaashi barely manages to grip two fistfuls of fur before they’re flying down the mountainside, forest a blur on either side.

“What’s-” Akaashi nearly chokes as the panther takes a dime-turn around a corner of his indiscernable route. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll see,” says the panther. It’s only then that Akaashi recognizes the tension in his voice. They don’t ask any more questions until the trees resolve themselves into individual trees again, and as they slide off the panther’s back, they realize that they’re at the waterfall - and that the mother tree is here, too.

Specifically, she’s kneeling next to the waterfall, both palms pressed against his forehead. He’s lying on his back, on one of the broad, flat, rocks next to his pool. His lower half is mostly submerged.

“What happened?” Akaashi whispers again, throat dry. The mother tree stands and turns to leave, offering Akaashi an unreadable look as she passes.

“We went out looking for you,” says the panther. “After the avalanche. We were worried - what kind of  _ stupid-” _ He cuts himself off, shakes his head, starts again. “You know nymphs can’t move too far from their water source, right? The other three, they managed it because it’s the same river, but his is the waterfall, he can’t-”

“Hey,” the waterfall interrupts, sitting up. His smile is weak, but it’s there. “None of that, now. I’m alright. And so are they.”

The panther sighs, and all the coiled rage seems to go out of him at once.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” says the panther. And then, unexpectedly, he bends to lick the top of Akaashi’s head, tongue rough and insistent. Then there’s some near-silent pawsteps, and he’s gone.

Akaashi and the waterfall are silent for a moment.

“You scared me,” Akaashi says finally.

“You scared  _ me,” _ says the waterfall, indignant. “Why were you up there in an avalanche, anyway?”

Akaashi shrugs, suddenly defensive as their mother’s words echo in their mind. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah.” The waterfall frowns up at them. “You’ve been gone all the time lately. Don’t you love us?”

“I - of course I do, that’s not it,” Akaashi bites out, low and frustrated. “You can do whatever you want. I just - I don’t understand why you all insist on being around  _ me _ \- I came here because I thought I’d be  _ away _ from people.”

The waterfall tilts his head, yellow eyes clear and honest. “You don’t want us to be around you?”

“I,” says Akaashi. Stops, restarts. “That’s not - I didn’t say-”

“You said you don’t understand,” the waterfall supplies, and suddenly, it’s as simple as that.

Hot shame rips through Akaashi. They bow their head, and hear rather than see the waterfall lifting himself from the pool. His footsteps leave wet prints on the sun-warmed rock.

“I’d miss you,” says the waterfall quietly, very close. “I don’t want you to go away forever. I know you don’t care if you disappear. But I do.”

“We all do,” says another voice. The panther is warm and solid behind Akaashi, and his head pushes against their shoulder, cheek rubbing along their green skin. “We want you to be here and safe. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” Akaashi whispers. And then again, louder: “I’m sorry.”

"It’s okay,” says the panther. He hooks his chin over Akaashi’s chin, and the waterfall suddenly throws his arms around their chest, squeezing them tight enough to provide a great excuse for the lump in their throat.

“And now that that’s settled,” says the waterfall, pulling away, “will you come swimming?”

Akaashi shakes their head. “Too cold.” The waterfall rolls his eyes at that, and Akaashi lets out a huff of a laugh. “Besides, I have something I need to do.”

The waterfall insists on hugging them extra-tight before they leave.

The mother tree is by the river when Akaashi returns to the valley. When she looks up, her eyes are gentle with understanding.

“You look like you've decided.”

“Yes.” Akaashi sits next to her on the bank, letting their feet dip into the icy snowmelt. It’s refreshing, after their boots and the summer heat, but soon it’ll be too numbing to stand.

The mother tree smiles. “Are you ready to go home, child?”

“Yes,” says Akaashi, and smiles back. “I’m ready.”

* * *

It’s probably the first time since high school started that Akaashi has woken up early. After their surprise, they rise and dress quietly, feeling more refreshed than they’ve ever managed with the extra half-hour before their actual alarm. Their mother raises an eyebrow in surprise as they pass through the kitchen and fix themself breakfast, but she doesn’t speak, only nods to them and returns to her newspaper. Something about the quiet of this morning needs to remain undisturbed.

When they reach the school for morning practice, Bokuto is there, stretching outside the locked door. He’s already been for a run - there’s steam curling off his body in the chill of the December morning as he pulls up his ankle behind him. As Akaashi approaches, he looks up and raises a hand in a wave.

“Mornin’, ‘kaashi! How’s it g-  _ wh-” _

He goes absolutely quiet as Akaashi hugs him. They can’t even hear his breathing, even though their head is nestled into his chest. Actually, they’re pretty sure he’s not breathing.

Akaashi files away this knowledge for future usage and then releases him, putting their hands into their pockets with a small smile up at him. Bokuto examines them with his bird-of-prey stare for a moment, and then breaks out into a broad grin to match. “What was that for, ‘kaashi?”

“Let’s start practice,” says Akaashi, instead of answering.

“Wha - okay, you’re in a good mood, but -  _ hey!” _ Bokuto squawks indignantly as Akaashi lets the door swing shut on him, and then pushes it open again, bounding after them. “Hey!”

He can’t see it, but Akaashi is smiling.


End file.
